Free Homemade

Updated on December 27, 2012

Free Homemade

I have quite a few interests that I can talk about till the “cows come home”. Below is some of the topics I will be talking about within my site. This is the first day at free homemadeand I have a lot to learn, so if anyone has some helpful hints please post a comment.

Free Homemade Kabana - Cabonossi

This is one of my favorite sausages to do because they are easy and my family and friends love them. I use a thick sausage casing because they fit on Jazz cracker perfectly and complement the cheese and beer well. I believe Kabana is called Cabonossi in Australia.

First I ground the meat. My local butcher looks after to me in this department, he gives me pork belly which usually works out to be an approx 700g meat and 300g fat, a 70/30 blend. I also used 450g of chuck steak which brings it to about 1.5kg of mea

Next comes the seasoning. I found it hard to find a supplier of the Kabana/Cabonossi seasoning but after some online looking I found a local supplier. If you know a butcher he may be able to supply you with some seasoning. I used 140g of seasoning wh

Then you need to get your hands dirty, (as with any cooking make sure you hands are clean). Pour the seasoning mixture over the meat and mix thoroughly with your hands to ensure a consistent blend.

I not sure how to show you this as I go off the feel of the mixture, if it feels a bit “soggy” add some bread crumbs to help firm the mixture. I suppose you could say you need it to feel like a bought sausage.

Here’s a picture of the mixture all ready to be pumped into sausages. I leave it sit in the fridge for about 1hr, this helps with the way I pump the sausages.

This shows how I clean my casing, I use the tap to put a bubble of water into the intestine and push the water from one end to the other. The online supplier also had the casings so I got all my supplies from the one spot. Easy

Here you see a “Caulking gun” I found this at the local hardware store and after a few modifications I had a sausage gun. I attached a piece of stainless steel curtain rod for the nozzle, all up it costs approx $25 and holds about 750g meat. Its eas

As you can see from this photo it’s so easy is it to fill the caulking gun. The pusher inside the gun allows air to be purged so I get a full canister of meat without annoying air bubbles.

The gun in action, it’s important not to overfill the casing so they don’t split when cooking, once again it’s a feel thing so go for bought sausage feel.

Tying the sausages. Pinch the sausage at about the length you want and spin the sausage away from you about 5 times.

You then move along and repeat the procedure except this time spin the sausage towards yourself 5 times, and just continue till finished. This is an easy way to tie and they will not come undone.

When I make a batch I use the opportunity to try some new sausages, on this occasion I also made some, Chorizo, Kransky’s (fantastic) and a German sausage. The Cabonossi, Chorizo and Kransky’s were all doubled smoked and cooked, the German sausage wa

Here’s my smokehouse I bricked up, it’s pretty basic with a fire at the bottom and a sheet of ply on top which I move around to give the best fire.

The sausages sitting pretty in the smoke house, sometimes I hang the sausages over the rods if I am doing a large quantity. This is the first smoking process, I give the sausages approximately 1hr at a low heat.

Into the pot they go. I use a hot water urn which is perfect for cooking sausages. As you can see in the photo the sausages are floating which is a good indication they cooked, I also feel the sausages which confirms the end of the cooking process. Y

Out of the pot into a container of cold water, this helps disperse the fat evenly in the sausage

Back into the smokehouse for about 1.5hrs to complete the double smoking process at a low heat, we are not looking to further the cooking process just increase the smoky flavour.

Free Homemade

When I decide to do some smoking it’s a good day, we get some friends over and have a few beers and then do some taste testing. If you have often thought about doing some sausages don’t hesitate, get some books and do some reading. You can just about anything for smoking, all you need is a fire for some smoke because we don’t need the heat to cook the sausages. I have also smoke chickens and fish, I also completed my first Christmas ham this year, I will document these processes at a later date soon. I would love to hear from people who can help me in my pursuit for fantastic tasting homemade smoked meats.

The first thing I will be doing is to work out how to add links to some more pages, one of which will be my first cooking video, I always wanted to do one showing some of my favourite recipes. Please enjoy my Free Homemade website and please post some comments. Thanks Grant